The pieces were steadily traded and the position remained equal. Finally, Ivanchuk gave up his hopes and offered a draw. Kramnik is through to the 5th round.

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov went all in against Gata Kamsky’s Gruenfeld Indian and tried to complicate the matters with an early h4-h5 advance.

The American Champion parried the threats on the open file and proceeded to open up the game around white king in the center. He found a cute maneuver Rb8-Rb2 and later gave up the whole rook on f2. The calculation was deep and reliable and black emerged with a perpetual check. Kamsky qualified for the quarter-final.

Julio Granda Zuniga tried to take Fabiano Caruana out of charted theory but the Italian star was ready for the challenge and even assumed an early initiative with the black pieces. Granda Zuniga put up a good fight but Caruana was ruthless and white resigned in face of a huge material loss. Caruana moves into the 5th round.

Hikaru Nakamura experimented too much with some sort of the Dutch setup and his opponent Anton Korobov finally claimed a small but lasting advantage after 22.c5.

Black had huge problems with pieces’ coordination and white slowly increased the pressure. Around the time control Korobov snatched a pawn and then a whole piece. He duly converted the advantage. Two-times Ukrainian Champion goes to the next round.